When Apple got into the mobile business, it was Nokia’s world. The Finnish company was considered something of a miracle worker. "I'm old enough to remember when Nokia had margins of 25 percent, and there was absolutely no way they were going to be dislodged from their leadership position," says Kuittinen of research firm Alekstra. Says Cook, "I think [Nokia] is a reminder to everyone in business that you have to keep innovating and that to not innovate is to die."

Quite true. If a fingerprint scanner and a 64bit ARM chip are innovation, time will tell, but for now, Apple is surely still atop of its game. The amazing load of iOS 7 application updates and the rapid adoption of Apple's latest is testament to that.

Stupid comments like this piss me off, seriously. I mean, what sort of pompous-assed ego do you have to have to post a comment that snide about the devices that are going to sell more than any other phone device in history? What it says, unquestionably, is that you're an elitist and that what you value is definitively not representative of the masses. Stupid or not, your view is not very common.

This is almost the same as someone trolling a Windows release article about how the sheep use Windows but should be using Linux.

Benchmarks now show the iPhone 5s running iOS 7 is faster than the "cutting-edge" Android devices running quad-cores. In other words, Apple invests in its software and hardware as a bundle, but Android users tend to use disparate, single-stack apps and more often than not, hardware that manufacturers care so little about that they stop supporting it within one calendar year. The still lure people in with gimmicks like 3D cameras or water-resistant chassis or a big speaker. Is that innovation? No thanks, I'll take the tight experience every time over that nonsense. FYI: I own a Galaxy Nexus and a BB10. I'm not on the latest BB10 and the Nexus takes literally months to get firmware updates. That's the non-Apple experience.

I'm sorry if this is harsh, but I'm so effing tired of this "Apple doesn't innovate" shit. This is a technology site and Apple is setting the bar for the mobile experience. If you want to post stupid drivel like this, please go to reddit.

What benchmarks are these exactly that show the 'dual core' 64-bit outperforming cutting-edge Android devices? Surely you are not referring to Anandtech. Anandtech shows that the few native run (ie. non Javascript benchmarks -- which are highly dependent on software implementation), the leading Android 'quad-cores' wipe the floor with the CPU in the iPhone 5s. Go ahead, take a look at the 3D Mark CPU-bound physics tests. The Snapdragon 800 is flat-out doubling the performance.

Apple is marketing their CPU as 64-bit and as such this characteristic is responsible for it's superlative performance, but that's not accurate. 64-bit can mean higher FP throughput, and certainly can address more memory, but on mobile these are not really relevant. Why the "64-bit" is most significant, is that it is an effective way to fool people into thinking that Apple is superior and leading the way for. But the fact is, most modern devices are incrementally improving, and Apple is sadly behind the technology curve the majority of the time.

** Fun Fact: By all indications, Apple did not design the CPU, ARM did. They may have modified an ARM design, but the R+D, and innovation was done by ARM. Apple just included it in their product.

Now, the GPU is quite formidable, but only incrementally so against it's cutting edge competitors in off screen tests; tests that equalize the playing field between devices. How long do you think this small lead will last? How long does Apple typically use the same SoC in their devices? If history is any guide, Apple's iPhone 5s will enjoy a few months of being slightly on top, and then spend the next year (or more) being significantly out-performed by the competition.

What I find annoying is that users see incremental gain by Apple as being "real" innovation. I remember when Android phones were running 800x480 screens, a significantly higher res than the laughable 480x320 screens in the early iPhone. But then Apple decided to make an incremental bump in res, label it 'Retina', and all of a sudden 960x640 (600K pixels) was considered "real" innovation. It wasn't long before Android devices moved up to 720p, significantly higher resolution (1M pixels). But that wasn't considered innovation. Currently Android devices have 1080p screens (2M pixels), but nobody is calling that innovation either.

** Fun fact: The current resolution of the larger iPhone 5 display STILL has significantly fewer pixels than the 720p of "low-end" Android devices (18% fewer). But that doesn't matter right? The argument then shifts to some other metric to once again show Apple as the leader. It only matters when Apple has even a modicum of advantage over its competitors.

But strangely nobody really bothered to ask the question: who really was making these screens? That is, who was doing the R+D needed to get these higher res screens (across the entire industry) on the market. Certainly not Apple: Apple doesn't make screens -- they purchase them from companies like Samsung. What they do, however, is trick the general public to believe that they do indeed make them and that they are revolutionary accomplishments.

This example of screens was to illustrate the public mindset that Apple has so wonderfully marketed to. They label minor, incremental gains as industry leading innovation -- gains that are happening in FAR greater frequency in other companies.

iPhone 5s's CPU has already been dominated, and the GPU will soon be as well.

** Fun fact: while Apple designs the SoC, ARM designed the CPU, and ImgTec designed the GPU. These components will be featured in other chips and find their way to some other Android devices.

This isn't to say that the iPhone isn't a nice device. It just is to say that it isn't nearly as special, unique, or industry-leading as it's being made out to be.